ROYAL Bank of Scotland and Barclays received more than $140 billion in secret low interest loans from the US Federal Reserve new documents reveal.

The information, released under US Freedom of Information laws, shows RBS Securities and Barclays Capital were borrowing billions a day at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

The US-investment bank arm of RBS was also borrowing from the scheme around the same time Sir Fred Goodwin was asking shareholders for an extra £12 billion in a rights issue.

In just one day - October 7, 2008 - RBS Securities took $20 billion in emergency loans from the US Federal Reserve.

The programme, known as the Fed's single-tranche open-market operations or ST OMO, at one point had $80 billion in loans outstanding in the six month period.

RBS Securities took a total of 27 loans in that time which added up to more than $73 billion, all of which have since been repaid.

More than $12 billion of those loans were made on interest rates of less than one per cent with the lowest made on December 23, 2008 at 0.28 per cent on a $1 billion loan.

Between March and December in 2008 Barclays Capital took 39 loans worth more than $67 billion.

The highest rate of interest Barclays paid was 2.83 per cent on a $2 billion loan on October 14, 2008, the lowest rate of 0.12 per cent was on a $1 billion loan taken on December 30, 2008.

Barclays largest single loan from the scheme - $7 billion on November 10, 2008 - was charged at 0.88 per cent interest, with the bulk of the loans it took charged at less than three per cent interest.

Neither Barclays or RBS would comment on the figures.

HSBC was the only other UK-based bank to access the emergency loan fund, taking a $152 million loan in March 2008.

Lehman Brothers Holdings was also revealed to have taken four separate loans from this secret lending programme totalling $18 billion in June 2008, just three months before it collapsed.

Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Scotland and Barclays were some of the largest beneficiaries of the Fed's term auction facility (TAF) set up to provide emergency funds to banks when money markets froze in 2008.

Barclays borrowed more than $230 billion from TAF between December 2007 and March 2010, with RBS and Bank of Scotland also in the top 10 users of TAF, having collectively borrowed $150billion from the scheme.

Last December it was revealed Barclays Capital received the largest single loan from the US Fed from the estimated $3.3 trillion in emergency credit given during the financial crisis.